


Because Now I See You

by drabbleswabbles



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2020-06-27 08:56:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19787548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drabbleswabbles/pseuds/drabbleswabbles
Summary: “He’ll be okay. He just needs time.”It’s the kind of thing an adult is supposed to say. And Steve wonders if all adults are as scared as he is that those words of wisdom are nothing more than a comforting lie, recycled over and over, because admitting that maybe some people can never be okay again is more terrifying than anything that lives in the Upside Down.***As it turns out, this fic is nowhere near as dark as Steve's musings.





	1. Chapter 1

Billy Hargrove doesn’t die. It’s a miracle of modern medicine. Honestly, that fact alone shocks Steve more than any of the other events that took place at Starcourt Mall.

It replays in his mind when he lets himself think back to that night. Two men in hazmat suits spraying thick dark goo over him out of the canisters on their backs. The soldiers with machine guns standing in a semi-circle with their guns pointed at Billy’s motionless body. He was so sure they were dissolving him. Turning him into the same puddle of melted flesh and bone as everyone else. Destroying evidence. An inhuman howl echoed through the mall when they poured it over him. And it took him a while to understand that it wasn’t the Mind Flayer coming back to make a last stand. That it was Max screaming.

Turned out that Dr. Owens did more than take a long vacation after the shut down of Hawkins Lab. When the military helicoptered in, prepared to battle an army of demogorgons or worse they brought along his latest invention. A liquid that could treat the kinds of injuries inflicted by mouths with endless rows of teeth. Which wasn’t of any use to everyone absorbed by the Mind Flayer or perfect for the deep wounds that riddled Billy’s torso, but it was enough. Enough to keep him alive.

It’s fall by the time they release him from the military hospital. The cameras and reporters are gone. All the funerals are over. The wilted flowers and rained on teddy bears are gone from underneath the memorial. The storefronts on Main Street are full again. Steve still lives at home. And on the surface Hawkins is the same. Peaceful, sleepy, and warm in a way that has nothing to do with the weather. But Steve knows that nothing is the same. Not really. The Wilsons next door take down the unused tree swing in their backyard. There is a new mayor. And a new Chief of Police. The Byers have moved away, taking El with them.

He’s in line at Melvald’s pharmacy waiting behind someone to pick up his dad’s blood pressure medication.

“Do you have any questions about your prescription?”

“No.”

His heart drops into his stomach, because after all this time he still recognizes that voice and he doesn’t know what he’s going to say. He examines the cropped blond hair in front of him and then he’s staring right into a pair of blue eyes. 

“Billy?”

The paper bag slips out of Billy’s grasp and hits the floor. They both reach for it and almost knock heads. Steve gets to it first, but not before he sees the scarred hand that reaches out for it at the same time. It’s missing a finger. He straightens out and offers it up to him.

“Thanks.” Billy takes it without meeting his eyes. He’s wearing his shirt buttoned up all the way. And Steve remembers Lucas talking to bewildered scientists. _We knew something was wrong with him when we saw him wearing a long sleeve shirt at the pool._

Before he can come up with anything else to say, Billy leaves. Steve expects him to swagger out with the same confidence that used to annoy him as much as it filled him with envy. But that walk is replaced by a cautious shuffle. As if every time he lifts his foot, he’s not sure that it will come back to land on solid ground.

It takes him until the store bell rings to signal Billy stepping outside to get it together and follow him. “Wait!”

Billy freezes with his hand on the door handle of a hideous banged up Chevette.

“It’s good to see you.”

Which is not what he expects himself to say. But the minute the words leave his mouth he knows that he means them. They were never friends. But high school is over. Everything that happened between them feels far away and unimportant in the face of everything that happened after. What’s a fistfight between two people who’ve faced off against a monster made up of melted human flesh and lived to sign the nondisclosure agreements? 

“You’ve always been full of surprises, Harrington.” The tone isn’t right, but there's a little bit of the old Billy in that sentence. A little mocking and razor sharp around the edges.

“Are you okay?”

Billy goes blank. Which is a fair response, because Steve didn’t spend days possessed by a monster that made him kill people and he still didn’t know how to answer that question when he went missing for five minutes and Robin found him standing in the storage room at Family Video staring into a box full of VHS tapes.

“I mean the prescription,” he hurries to clarify.

“They’re sleeping pills.”

Steve nods, he doesn’t need that explained. He points back to the store with his thumb. “I need to pick up my dad’s prescription.”

Billy nods and gets into the car, so Steve turns to go back inside.

“Steve.” He glances over his shoulder. Billy has the window rolled down. He's pallid in the dim light of the parking lot. “Thank you for trying to stop me.”

Billy Hargrove doesn’t die. But Steve can’t help the thought that he doesn’t exactly live.


	2. Chapter 2

The kids are watching a movie at the Wheeler’s house, courtesy of his employee discount. He comes by sometimes to hang out with them and Nancy. She doesn’t like going over to his house after everything with Barb. Not that he can blame her. Sometimes the blue glow of the pool at night creeps him out a little too. Steve escapes the noise of the basement and goes to get himself a drink from the fridge. Between the time he’s spent dating Nancy and being her friend, he knows his way around the place.

Except this time when he comes up, he doesn’t hear the familiar dull rasp of Mr. Wheeler snoring from the recliner. There is a gasping, hiccupping sound coming from the bathroom. He runs his hand through his hair and listens for a moment, trying to figure out if he can identify who’s making the sound and if he should acknowledge it.

He raps gently on the door. A year ago, he would’ve walked away, too nervous that he wouldn’t know what to do or say once the door opened. It makes him just as nervous now, but if there is one positive that’s come of everything that happened, it’s that he’s discovered a new kind of confidence. Not the kind of for show confidence required to mouth off to a teacher in the hopes of impressing a girl. Something a little deeper. A ‘less primitive construct’, Dustin would call it. Because it’s so fucking stupid not to fight past the fear of an awkward moment after a monster the size of a house chases you.

“Is everything okay?”

Someone blows their nose and flushes. Then the door opens and it’s Max. He hadn’t noticed her going upstairs. Her eyes and nose are red, but she nods.

“What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head, eyes going watery. “You wouldn’t understand.”

He moves past her to take the toilet paper roll off the holder and motions her into the kitchen, hands her the can of coke he planned to get for himself. “Try me.”

“I miss him.”

And for the life of him Steve can’t figure out who she’s talking about. Because even though she’d been part of the group for a while, he didn’t think she’d gotten close enough to Will or Hopper to be sobbing in a bathroom over their absence. “Who?”

“Billy.”

“They took him back to the hospital?”

She shakes her head, tears spilling over again.

He waits out her silence. It’s uncomfortable, but he waits anyway.

Max takes a couple sips from the can and blows her nose again. “I want the old Billy back. I know it's crazy because he was an asshole. But I miss him blasting music and driving too fast. God, I even miss him yelling at me not to be late.”

“That doesn’t sound crazy at all.” And he means it. Sometimes he misses the person he used to be. The douchebag who hung out with Tommy H. and Carol and knew exactly what he wanted and how the rest of his life was going to go. Even if he recognizes that he’s a better person or whatever now, it doesn’t keep him from longing for simpler times.

“He’s _not_ okay. And I don’t know how to help him.”

“What about your parents?”

Max snorts bitterly. “They like him better this way.”

Steve wipes his hands over his face, because it’s not fair for a kid to have to deal with all of that. It’s the kind of shit that makes him feel helpless even though he’s supposedly an adult now. But here they both are.

“I don’t think any of us are ever going to be the same. Especially, Billy.”

She rips the tab off the can and scratches it against the opening. “He used to sneak out of the house to see girls all the time. But no one’s come to see him since he got back. It’s like no one cares.”

“He didn’t exactly have a lot of friends before.”

Max winces.

He didn’t mean for it to come out so harshly. He knows from first hand experience that having admirers and girls who want an invite up to your bedroom isn’t the same thing as having friends. All the people he used to call friends are gone. They’re away at fancy colleges or trying their hand at real jobs in Indianapolis. Before they left, a couple of them told him they’d miss him. And some of them probably meant it. But the fact remains, they’re not the kind of friends he can call up when he needs someone to sit next to him and just _be_ there. 

School is back in session. The kids are back at school and so is Robin. And he hasn’t felt this invisible since before he became popular. Sometimes people kind of recognize him when they show up at Family Video, but it’s not a good thing. Because now he’s _that_ guy. The guy who peaked in high school and is stuck in Hawkins working his way through an endless series of dead end jobs.

“He’ll be okay. He just needs time.”

It’s the kind of thing an adult is supposed to say. And Steve wonders if all adults are as scared as he is that those words of wisdom are nothing more than a comforting lie, recycled over and over, because admitting that maybe some people can never be okay again is more terrifying than anything that lives in the Upside Down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amount of kudos on chapter one seriously knocked my socks off. Thanks for reading everyone!


	3. Chapter 3

It’s the middle of the day on a Wednesday when something compels him to take a left instead of a right from the Fair Mart parking lot. He doesn’t have anything to do, because Wednesday is the shittiest day off ever. Keith delights in assigning it to him. He drives until he hits Old Cherry Road and then keeps driving until he gets to Billy’s house. He knows it from dropping Max off a couple of times. And once he gets there, there is no real reason not to get out and ring the bell.

A red haired woman who has to be Max’s mom answers the door. “Can I help you?”

“Is Billy home?”

She narrows the opening in the doorway a bit. “Are you from _The Hawkins Post_?”

“Billy and I went to high school together.”

“You’re a friend?”

“I- Yeah.” He sticks his hand out to her. “Steve Harrington.”

Her fingers barely press against his before slipping away, but she steps out of the way to let him in. “One moment.”

Exercise equipment takes up a whole corner of a living room that might be a bit smaller than his bedroom. There is an enormous jar of seashells on the mantel of the fireplace. The floorboards creak and groan even though Steve has never seen anyone move as softly through a space as Max’s mom navigates the hallway. She raps her knuckles against the wall by the closest doorway. 

“Billy. Your friend is here to see you.”

She hovers there for a while then walks back to him. “He might’ve forgotten that you’re coming. But you’re welcome to try and get a word out of him.”

Steve retraces her steps and pauses in the same place she did. It’s the kitchen. He takes in the teal cabinets and bright red counter tops. All the appliances match the cabinets. It’s bright. Warm autumnal light pours in through the window. Billy’s sitting at a white plastic table that looks like it might have lived on a patio in a past life.

“Hey.” When Billy doesn’t respond he sits down across from him and moves aside the box of corn flakes that’s blocking his view of his face. “What are you doing?”

He can see what Billy’s doing. He’s moving a spoon back and forth through cornflakes so soggy that they resemble movie theater popcorn butter poured over milk. Judging by that he hadn’t started eating breakfast at two thirty in the afternoon. 

Since Billy still doesn’t say anything, he allows himself to study him openly. It’s only now that they’re gone that he realizes how much softness the curls around his face used to grant his features. His perpetual tan is gone too. As if the sun gave up on clinging to his skin. And the earring is missing. He used to spend a lot of time watching it dangle when they played basketball together. Before Billy moved to town, he’d never seen a guy wearing an earring outside of a movie.

When he helps himself to a handful of corn flakes Billy looks up from whatever he’s engraving in his bowl.

“These are terrible.” Steve eats a flake from the palm of his hand like it’s a tiny chip. “You know they make a frosted version, right?”

Billy looks away. 

“I’ve been watching movies for work.” He helps himself to a second handful of cereal. “I work at Family Video now. And Robin, she used to work with me at Scoops Ahoy, she made me a whole list of movies to watch. Most of them are terrible. Who wants to watch anything in black and white anymore? But I watched _The Apartment._ You ever seen it?”

When Billy doesn’t respond Steve shrugs and keeps going.

“It’s about this guy who’s got an apartment. So, at least the title makes sense. Don’t get me started on _A Clockwork Orange._ It’s got nothing to do with clocks or oranges. Anyway, this guy’s got an apartment…” 

And somehow, he finds himself explaining the whole plot to Billy. Which takes him a while, because he’d sucked at writing book summaries at school and doing it on the fly with a movie isn’t any easier. He muddles past the bit about the suicide, skipping over the details about the sleeping pills when he remembers that Billy’s got a prescription for them. Then gets stuck on trying to remember the last line.

“Anyway, that’s not important-”

“Shut up.”

Steve chokes on a dry mouthful of cornflakes.

“Shut up,” Billy repeats, softer this time. “Shut up and deal. That’s the line.”

“Right. Yeah.” Steve clears his throat, as if they’ve been having a normal conversation. “Anyway, it got me wondering. You think all the apartments in New York come with such small kitchens?”

Billy spoons a dripping glob out of the bowl and shoves it in his mouth, his lip quirks around the spoon. His teeth scrape over the metal when he moves to set it down. “That’s what you got out of _The Apartment_?” 

Steve drags the bowl away from him, because he can feel the slimy lump of congealed food going down his own throat.

“I need to finish that.”

“What?”

"I leave the table when I’m done.”

He’s not sure what that means. Is it a bizarre enforcement of a household rule normally reserved for children reluctant to finish all the broccoli on their plate? Is it a punishment Billy is inflicting on himself? Or is it maybe that spending hours in front of a bowl of cereal gives him an excuse to postpone whatever it is he does after? Either way, it makes Steve queasy.

He picks the bowl up, dumps its contents into the sink, and washes away the evidence. “You’re done. Get up. We’re getting pizza.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos!


	4. Chapter 4

It becomes a thing. On Wednesdays, he drives over to Hargrove’s house. It’s something to do.

Sometimes Billy answers the door and sometimes it’s Susan. Most of the time when he doesn’t answer the door Steve finds him in the kitchen in front of a bowl of soggy cereal or cold oatmeal. A couple of times he’s in front of the tiny living room television. They sit around for a bit and then they go somewhere. To the pizza place or the diner. Or Steve drives around town with the radio on, circling the same streets that he’s circled his entire life.

One time, Susan shows him the way to his room. Billy is still in bed with his back to the door. He’s not wearing a shirt. And Steve thinks that the Mind Flayer made the government’s job easy, because it left behind scars that blend into each other and resemble melted flesh. He sits down on the lumpy brown couch and can’t think of anything to say so he doesn’t say much of anything. He lets himself rotate between examining every corner of the room and watching the rise and fall of Billy’s side as he breathes. It’s weird and intimate in an unsettling way. He doesn’t get a word out of Billy that day.

On a cloudy day, he drives them down to the quarry and they sit on the hood of his car and look out into the depths of the water. Most of the leaves are on the ground. The ones that aren’t rustle dryly in the wind. It’s chilly and kind of a depressing. Soon it’s going to be too cold to sit outside.

“What the hell are we doing here?”

Steve looks over to find himself face to face with the old Billy. Calculating, alert, on the verge of something turbulent. “Thought we could both do with some fresh air.”

“No. What are _we_ doing here? Why do you keep coming over my house?”

“Not like I’ve got much else to do.”

“Bullshit.”

“Max mentioned you could use some visitors.” It’s not untrue and it’s less embarrassing than admitting how painfully true his original explanation is.

“Figures," Billy scoffs. "She never did know when to mind her own business.”

“Yeah. That’s the thing about loving someone, isn’t it? Makes it really hard to mind your own business.”

The silence stretches between them forever. Which isn’t as uncomfortable as it should be. Steve is used to Billy dropping out of a conversation with no warning whenever he pleases. If there is one thing he’s learned about Billy, it’s that he knows how to plant his damn feet. There is no budging him once he makes up his mind.

“When did you get so fucking blunt, Harrington?”

“Right around the time you got so fucking quiet, Hargrove.”

Billy laughs, so maybe he feels it too. The hint of tension that used to cling to all their exchanges. Irritating, like an itch he couldn’t quite reach, but somehow addictive because it came with the tantalizing potential of blissful relief.

“You know, the real bitch of it is, my dad was right all along. Turns out, my presence is halfway tolerable as long as I keep my mouth shut.” 

A couple days before she moved, he overheard El talking to Max. Asking her about the angry man in the storm. Asking if he yelled at her too. And at the time he hadn’t given it much thought. There’d been a lot of angry men yelling in the mall. There was a storm when they left. But it’s occurring to him that maybe she wasn’t talking about that storm. _I took him to the memory outside the storm. So he could find himself._ That’s how she’d explained it when he’d asked how she’d broken the Mind Flayer’s hold.

“Wouldn’t know anything about that.” Steve lights himself a cigarette. He doesn’t really smoke anymore, but it’s a way to occupy his hands. “Can’t say I knew you before.”

“I was an asshole.”

“Shame I never invited you to join the club. We could’ve been friends.”

“We moved to Hawkins because my dad caught me with the next door neighbor’s son’s dick in my mouth.”

It doesn’t take him as long to put it together this time. Which doesn’t make it any easier to come up with the right response. Blowjobs are not as inherently hilarious as Tammy Thompson’s singing. At least not in this context.

“Still think we could’ve been friends?”

He forces himself to meet Billy’s defiant glare. It holds none of the vulnerable concern of Robin’s confession. It’s a furious dare. A challenge to swing his fists. To spit venomous words that can’t be taken back. To leave him at the quarry and let him walk home in the cold. To never speak to him again. “Probably not.”

He’s pretty sure that if he found himself in the possession of the details of Billy’s move from California back then, he would’ve done something horrible. To pretend otherwise would be a lie.

“But we can be friends now.”

When he first met Tommy, it took Steve a whole hour to declare to him that they were friends. And that simple statement was enough to make it so right up until the Upside Down blew up his entire life. Maybe he hasn’t lost his powers yet. He takes a gamble and corrects himself.

“We _are_ friends now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading and commenting. It's always lovely to hear from readers. <3


	5. Chapter 5

Steve blows a bubble with his gum and pops it loudly. It’s a new thing he came up with to annoy Robin when they have a long shift at Family Video. Robin glares at him from where she’s shelving new releases. He knows she’s not actually annoyed. If she was then she would ignore him. She knows that the more she exaggerates her annoyance the more it encourages him to continue.

The phone rings. He picks it up on the first ring. “Family Video. How can we assist you with escaping your boring everyday reality?”

Keith isn’t around. He doesn’t give a shit. Also, Robin might be rubbing off on him a bit.

“Steve?”

“Max?”

“Yeah. Can you talk?”

Steve cradles the phone between his shoulder and ear to free up his hands to check out a stack of tapes. The high school kid renting five documentaries on a Friday night isn’t going to ask to speak to the manager about his terrible customer service. “Sure.”

“Billy’s gone.”

The worn out account card slips out of his hand and falls into an open box of candy packets he was supposed to restock over an hour ago. “What?”

“I haven’t seen him since last night.”

“He’s probably out with some girl.” Steve kneels to rummage through the packages of candy for the slip of laminated paper. It’s only when he finds it that he remembers what Billy told him about the move from California. It’s easy to forget. He went to the Community Pool a couple of times over the summer before everything happened and Billy spent more time making filthy bedroom eyes at every chick in sight than he did blowing his whistle. Which was impressive considering he never turned down the opportunity to use it. Then again, he’s not sure how much Max knows about the details of their move so that’s probably for the best anyway.

“No.” Max lowers her voice. “He had a fight with his dad last night and he hasn’t been back. I checked his room and… He took his sleeping pills.”

He cracks his head against the counter in his rush to stand up. “Shit!”

“Do you think he- I mean-He wouldn’t- Would he?”

From the moment he first saw Billy Hargrove he had him figured out. He drove a car everyone could hear from a mile away. He had a pierced ear and a mullet. He wore obnoxiously tight jeans and never buttoned up his shirts. He owned a leather jacket. He was basically a tanned version of a Hawkins douchebag. What more was there to know? Every word out of his mouth was predictable.

Except, last week Billy kept glancing over at him while they waited in line at the pizza place then looking away. And he was grumpy because that morning his dad asked him if he planned on working at Family Video ‘the rest of the year’ in a tone that implied he wanted to end that sentence with ‘the rest of your life’. So, he’d snapped ‘what?’ expecting that Billy was going to ask him again why he was wasting his time hanging out with him when he could be doing something more impressive. Whatever the hell that would be. Billy flinched and muttered something about olives instead of pepperoni. And somehow that moment undermined everything he thought he knew about Billy more that his standoff with a melted flesh monster. Who likes olives on pizza?

“He wouldn't.” The guy at the counter glares at him. Steve turns his back on him. “I’ll look for him, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Talk to you in a bit.” Steve hangs up.

“Hey.” Robin flips up the countertop and comes over to stand next to him. “What’s going on? Everything okay?”

“Excuse me,” the guy at the counter cuts in. “Do you think you could check me out some time this century?”

“Here you go.” Robin snatches the account card from his hand and slaps it on top of the VHS tapes. “Bring them back next week or don’t. We don’t care. You’re the only person who’s ever checked out a documentary about whales.”

Steve doesn’t correct her and point out that Dustin checked out the same documentary last month. The guy takes the tapes and storms out. He barely manages to wait until the door swings shut behind him.

“I need to go. Cover for me?”

“Is this another Monster Mash situation? Because if so, I’m coming with. You’ll need someone with brains.”

It’s her codename for the Mind Flayer. Which is an insensitive way to refer to a lot of innocent people who died a gruesome death. But they all have their own ways of coping. Who is he to judge? If it wasn’t for him, she wouldn’t need coping strategies. He thinks about it sometimes. Knowing everything he did about Hawkins he thought it would be a good idea to break into a storage room guarded by someone with a gun. He dragged her into all of that. He let her drag another _child_ into that. Because Dustin said, not in so many words, that it would help him get laid. When his dad tells him that he needs to reevaluate his priorities, he doesn’t know how right he is.

“I don’t think so. It’s Billy. Max says he hasn’t been home for a while.”

Robin raises her eyebrows. “Okay…”

“I need to find him.”

“Don’t worry.” She hands him a packet of Reese’s pieces. “If Keith asks, I’ll tell him you’ve got explosive diarrhea.”

“Thanks?” He looks at the candy. “What do I do with these?”

“How did you do anything before you met me, dingus?” She rolls her eyes then keeps them skyward as if she is awaiting a response from the heavens, or in this case the water damaged ceiling tiles. “You share them when you find him. Duh.”

“Right.” It doesn’t make much more sense after her explanation, but he doesn’t have time to ask any more questions. He shoves them in his coat pocket and waves a thank you over his shoulder as he jogs to his car.

He checks all the obvious places first. Drives down Main Street to see if he’s in any of the stores. Then takes the long way to the quarry so he can drive past the diner. He gets out of the car by the quarry and walks around for a bit, checking all the hidden spots where people park and finds a couple making out. There’s no trace of Billy. He goes back to his car and procrastinates for a while before driving out into the middle of nowhere. The abandoned steel mill is still there. It’s weird how many times he drove past the place and never noticed it. It used to blend into the surrounding woods. Now it looms over everything. The Chevette looks tiny in front of it. He pulls up next to it.

Billy is sitting in the passenger side seat with his hand sticking out the window. He’s holding a cigarette that’s ash almost down to the filter.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to come out here to find you.”

“Max called you.”

Steve gets of out of the car and guesses by the pile of ash and filters on the ground that he’s made it through more than a pack. He gets in on the driver’s side and glances at the backseat. There’s a blanket and a pillow there. He should probably ask or say something about that. Instead he takes the Reese’s pieces out of his pocket and rips them open.

Billy holds his hand out and waits until Steve pours some candy into his palm. He crunches loudly then lights another cigarette and sticks his hand out the window again. “I tried to fuck Mrs. Wheeler.”

Crushed candy bits fly out of his mouth as he chokes. “What?”

“I was driving to meet her at Motel 6 when that thing got me.”

And he knows this really isn’t what he should focus on in that sentence, but he can’t help himself. “Mrs. Wheeler _agreed_ to meet you at Motel 6?”

“Don’t act so shocked.” Billy smirks. “I used to be hot.”

Which is when he remembers all over again about what Billy told him. “But you said you’re… You know…”

“I am.” Billy shrugs and looks away. “Still felt good to be wanted.”

There isn’t a single part of that story that doesn’t make his skin crawl, but he figures this isn’t the best moment to share that. “What happened with your dad?”

“Don’t wanna talk about it.”

It must be pretty bad if Billy’s willing to talk about the night the Mind Flayer possessed him, but not about that. “You have to go home. Max is really worried about you.”

“I can’t.”

“Because of your dad?”

“No. Because the car won’t start.”

Steve laughs. It’s not really funny but there’s something about the matter of fact way Billy says it that is suddenly hilarious. He’s laughing so hard that tears are leaking out of the corners of his eyes. And then Billy is laughing too. It kind of sounds like he’s hiccuping. If anyone were to walk by they would definitely assume that the two of them are deranged. Maybe they are. Maybe they’ve both lost their grip on reality and hallucinated all of the same horrible things. Every time he thinks he’s regained control of himself he catches sight of Billy wheezing with laughter and it starts all over again.

By the time the waves of hysteria subside his sides hurt. Orange sunlight pours into the car and over Billy skin. It’s going to be dark soon. They should get going. But he needs more time to memorize this moment. One perfect instant when everything is light and warm. Billy smiles at him, his whole body oddly loose, as if a lifetime of tension has drained out of him.

“You’re still hot.”

Billy’s surprise is nothing compared to his own. Because where did that even come from? It’s true though. He’s always known that Billy is hot in the same way he knows girls Max’s age find the kid in that karate movie cute. But this is the first time he actually _sees_ it.

“You are so full of shit.” Billy says. “You’ve seen my back. The front is worse.”

“Look on the bright side.” Steve hopes he’s not about to get punched in the face. “You’re always going to turn heads shirtless.”

Billy snorts then groans and clutches his side. “Stop making me laugh, asshole.”

“Come on.” It’s starting to get dark. He glances towards the steel mill and shudders involuntarily. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did this chapter randomly get so much longer than the others? Either way, to anyone who also follows Causal Nexus, I swear that for better or worse this fic isn't going to be nearly as long or as much of a slow burn. 
> 
> Thanks for all of the kudos and comments dears!


	6. Chapter 6

The morning after he drove Billy home from Brimborn Steelworks, the phone rings while he eats breakfast. Sharp pieces of Cinnamon Toast Crunch bite into his throat as he chokes them down. Dustin wanted him to install a giant radio tower in his backyard in case of emergencies. He didn’t want to explain that to his parents or his neighbors so as a compromise he answers the phone as soon as it rings. There hasn’t been another emergency yet, but Dustin tests him sometimes. 

“Harrington residence. Steve speaking.”

Monsters might be real, but that’s no reason for poor phone manners.

“It’s Billy.” There is a small pause. “Billy Hargrove.”

As if there might be some doubt as to which Billy might be calling him. It’s a relief to hear from him. Dropping him off at home last night hadn’t been a good feeling. Steve knows he isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that whatever is going on at the Hargrove’s isn’t good. “Hey. Everything okay?”

“You said we’re friends, right?”

“Yeah…” It’s an ominous way to start a conversation. “Why? You got a body to bury?”

“What?” Billy’s voice cracks.

Which is when he realizes that his joke isn’t right for the audience. They haven’t talked about it. He’s not sure how much Billy remembers about the things the Mind Flayer made him do or if anyone has explained it to him. But he has to know. If he didn’t get his hands on copies of all the newspaper articles about the causalities from the mall fire then he’s seen the memorial with all the names.

“Never mind. Bad joke. What’s going on?”

“Can you give me a ride?”

“When?”

“Now.”

These days, he doesn’t get too many opportunities to feel useful. He misses the easy feel good rush of giving someone a ride when they need it. It’s still warm enough for the kids to bike to school most days. Nancy got a car for her birthday so she drives Mike and Lucas when it’s raining. That only leaves Dustin and his mom drops him off on the way to work. Max never asks for rides. “See you in ten.”

He abandons the cereal. His parents are out of town so no one’s going to complain about the mess. It takes him a little over ten minutes to get there because he gets stuck behind Mrs. Wilson who comes to a full stop at every stop sign and waits forever before moving forward. Billy is sitting on the porch steps when he pulls up.

“You didn’t ask me where we’re going,” Billy says as he gets in.

“Where are we going?”

“Cincinnati.”

It’s a bit over a two-hour drive from Hawkins. Steve pops the tape out of the cassette deck and checks it. It’s been a while since he’s taken a drive long enough to justify using a tape instead of the radio. “Hope you like… Elvis.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Great.” Steve tries not to sound disappointed. It’s not his tape. His mom borrowed the car to drive to Indianapolis a couple months back while her car was in the shop. He’d been hoping that Billy would offer to go back inside and get something better. He's seen all the tapes scattered around his room. 

They’re a couple minutes out of Hawkins when Steve starts to think that he might need to stop at a gas station and pick up a cup of coffee and some snacks to keep himself awake. Perhaps Billy senses his boredom because, ironically in the middle of _A Little Less Conversation,_ he says, “I can see how you got mixed up in the Upside Down.”

Steve raises his eyebrows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I asked you to give me a ride and you didn’t ask where we’re going or why. I can see you now. Wide eyed. Helpful. Giving the kids a ride. No questions asked. Driving right into the center of everything.”

Which is when he realizes that Billy doesn’t know. He has no idea about how Steve ended up involved in all of this. He should let it go. The last thing Billy needs is to hear about more horrible things involving the Upside Down. He’s experienced enough of it for more than one lifetime. “Three years.”

“What?”

“That’s how long I’ve known about it.”

“How’d you find out?”

Steve tells him. He starts with dating Nancy and ends with seeing him carried out of the mall on a stretcher. He goes into a lot of details that aren’t strictly necessary to explain his connection to the Upside Down. Like about all the girls he tried to ask out while he worked at Scoops Ahoy and all the hilarious things Robin said. It’s not the most efficient way to tell a story, but it’s a long drive and they have time to kill. Billy offers up the occasional grunt to acknowledge that he’s listening, but otherwise doesn’t comment until Steve finishes.

“So, what you’re telling me is that we both got mixed up in this trying to get laid?”

Steve snorts. “That’s one way to put it.”

“You ever think about how much money we could make if we told someone about all of this?”

He’s never thought about it. All he’s ever wanted has been to forget it all happened and go on to live a normal life. Besides, he’s not insane. If the government can crack open the wall between dimensions then it can find a way to make him disappear before he thinks about opening his mouth to anyone about it. Even the mention of it makes him as nervous as when Nancy wanted him to help her do something about Hawkins lab. “Why are we going to Cincinnati?”

“I got an interview with _The Cincinnati Enquirer_.”

His mouth goes dry.

“Relax.” Billy slaps his shoulder with the back of his hand. “I go every week. Boys from the lab like to check in on how I’m adjusting. Once they’ve had their fill, they give me a check to help me remember all about the fire at the mall.”

“And are you?”

“Keeping my mouth shut?”

"Adjusting.”

“Are you?”

Despite several encounters with monsters and a couple Russian soldiers, he doesn’t have a scratch on him. All of those healed. Somehow, he doesn’t have a single scar. He has a job and a roof over his head. The gate is closed again. As long as he keeps his mouth shut, he's safe. Sure, he jumps a little when the phone rings and sure, the flicker of a light bulb twists his guts with the violent force of the onset of food poisoning. But life is good. Everything is fine. No one ever feels the need to ask him if he’s okay. Which is a pretty good indication that he is.

“It’s weird. How normal everything is.”

“Power of the human mind and shit,” Billy says, although he doesn’t sound all that impressed or happy about it. “Amazing, the shit that becomes normal if you see it enough.”

Steve hums noncommittally, because he’s not entirely sure that Billy’s talking about the Upside Down. They don’t say much after that. When they get into the city Billy starts playing with his lighter. He flicks it on and off in between giving him occasional directions until they end up in the parking lot of a building looks as boring as all the other buildings around it.

“I might be a while,” Billy says around the nail he’s chewing on. “You don’t have to wait. I'll find a ride back.”

And it’s just like it was the night at the Byers when he first saw the demogorgon. He doesn’t so much decide as watches himself reach out and wrap his hand around Billy’s wrist to pull his hand away from his mouth and set it gently on the center console. “Do you want me to go in with you?”

Billy doesn’t yank his hand away or ask him to explain what the hell he’s doing so he keeps his hand there. Fingers resting on Billy's wrist, arms pressed against each other. It’s a little strange, but not strange like discovering a secret Russian lab under the mall. More…unfamiliar. He examines the spattering of tiny scabs on Billy’s fingers, left behind by gnawed off hangnails. And when he senses more than sees a nod out of the corner of his eye he thinks that maybe, if they sit this way for a while longer, it might feel normal too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the patience with updates everyone!


	7. Chapter 7

There is nothing special about the secret government lab in Cincinnati. It looks like any other office building from the outside and like every doctor’s waiting room from the inside. There is a stack of outdated and wrinkled magazines on the coffee table. The chairs are uncomfortable and the couch is the opposite, too comfortable for a public space. The secretary at the front desk gives Billy a clipboard and asks him to sign in and take a seat. A horrible fake plant coated in dust observes everything from the corner.

“Billy. You’re early.” A woman in a lab coat steps out, eyes on her watch, then glances up and does a double take. “And you brought Steve.”

Of course, she knows his name. They must have all of their names and pictures in some file.

“Have we met?” Steve knows they haven’t.

She smiles wide. It’s a little scary. “Dr. Jones. Pleasure to meet you Mr. Harrington. I thought Billy would’ve mentioned me.”

“My car broke down,” Billy cuts in. “That’s the only reason he’s here.”

It stings a little even if it’s technically true that there is no other reason for him to be shaking the hand of some doctor who can probably order the government to make him disappear. He doesn’t know how Billy finds the courage to drive himself here every week. He wouldn't be able to manage the trip without someone to talk him into it the whole way.

“Ah. Well.” She releases Steve from her grip. “Whatever the circumstances, it’s nice to have you here. It’s a long drive. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Well, then. You ready for your checkup, Billy?”

“Can Steve come?”

“Of course.” Dr. Jones looks thrilled with the prospect. “I’m so glad you decided to take my advice and bring someone with you to your appointment.”

“I told you, my car broke down.”

Steve restrains himself from jabbing an elbow into his side. Because, is it really necessary to point that out _twice_? Maybe they’re not best friends. Maybe Billy doesn’t tell him anything that friends tell each other. Maybe he tolerates Steve coming around because he’s too lazy to find a better option. But there is no need to publicly announce it.

“That’s right. You did say that.” Dr. Jones turns to lead them down the hallway. Her heels click against the pristine linoleum. The hallway feels endless. Steve wonders what’s behind all the closed doors they are passing. It can’t all be patient rooms. There is no way that many people need medical treatment after an encounter with the Upside Down. At least, he hopes not.

They end up in a small office. It looks normal. Billy skootches up onto the table, paper cover crinkling. Steve takes a seat in the extra chair that makes him feel short. There is a poster of the four food groups on the wall with a smiling tomato and a surprised slice of toast. A medical model of a lung is on the desk as if the doctor might forget how they work and need it for reference. 

“The nurse will be right with you.”

It’s awkward watching Billy go through all the normal tests he knows from getting a physical, like he’s spying on something private. He has to look away when they take his blood. He’s got a thing about needles now. Also, about doctors, even if the guy who almost yanked his nail out probably wasn’t a real doctor. Instead he watches Billy staring down at where a vial is filling with his blood.

“That’ll do it, sweetie. Doctor will be right in.”

Billy scowls at her. With his legs dangling from the table he looks younger. It’s unnerving. He can almost picture him at eight years old, refusing to accept his lollipop for being good.

“I told you,” Billy says when the nurse is gone. “You should’ve left when you had the chance.”

“What do you mean?” Steve can’t help the involuntary glance towards the door. He’s got a thing about people leaving a room and closing the door behind them now too.

“This isn’t exactly fun.”

“Not everything has to be fun.” It comes out more defensive than he intends. “That’s the life of a chauffeur, right?” Which is supposed to be a joke, but ends up making the first thing he said sound even more defensive. He blames it on nerves.

“I-”

Dr. Jones bursts through the door. “Okay then, let’s talk about how you’re doing.”

“I’ll be better when I get my check.”

“I see you’ve lost more weight,” she says, glancing at the file in her hands. “Are you keeping to your diet?”

Billy shrugs.

“And the smoking?”

“Sometimes.”

Dr. Jones sighs. “Billy, your lungs and heart, forgive my language, took one hell of a beating. It’s a miracle that they still function. If you keep this up, you’re going to end up back in the hospital and on oxygen. And we both remember how much you loved that.” 

“Careful, doc. Using language like that might hurt my delicate sensibilities.”

It doesn’t get any better after that. Steve listens to Billy blow off every question about his health. Then watches as he unbuttons his shirt for the part of the exam with the stethoscope. He hasn’t seen the front of his chest yet. And honestly, Billy wasn’t lying. His front is worse than his back. The scarring hasn’t faded yet. It’s bright red and uneven. He sees it all over again. The Mind Flayer plunging its limbs into him. It’s scary. And… amazing. Billy’s chest rises and falls as he breathes in and out with the doctor’s instructions. It’s a miracle that he’s alive. Steve can’t believe that all this time they’ve been driving around Hawkins and eating pizza when they should be… He doesn’t know what they should be doing. Something better. Something that makes them feel alive.

“And what happened here?” Dr. Jones asks feeling around the bruising on Billy’s shoulder.

“Nothing.” He pulls away from her.

“Okay. Well, if you ever want to talk about all of the nothing that keeps happening, we have a great therapist on staff.” She hands him a business card from her pocket. “In the meantime, I’m going to get you set up with an icepack.”

Billy tosses the card towards the trashcan and misses. Then starts to struggle back into his shirt. Steve waits until Dr. Jones leaves the room and gets up to stand in front of him. “Want some help?”

“No.” He fiddles with the first button of his shirt. A tremor runs through his hand and it slips out of his grasp. Billy closes his eyes, runs the heel of his other hand over his forehead, smoothing the creases violently. “I don’t want your help, but I want to be dressed before they take me to the torture chamber.”

The saliva disappears from his mouth. “What?”

“Shit, sorry. Bad joke.” Billy squeezes his arm briefly. “That’s what I call fine motor therapy.”

“Oh.” He laughs nervously then pulls the sides of Billy’s shirt together and lines them up to figure out which buttons go where. His hands tremble a little but he manages to make it halfway there. “You know, maybe you should go back to leaving your shirts open. It’d be way faster.”

“Yeah, that’s why I did that. All the time savings.” 

Steve finishes buttoning him up, because Billy asked for help and that’s the way he buttons his shirts now. He straightens his collar and smooths the shirt out on his shoulders, careful not to put pressure on the bruising they should talk about. He steps back to examine his handiwork. “You know, one thing hasn’t changed. Red is still your color.”


	8. Chapter 8

The torture chamber turns out not to resemble one in the least. There is a big table with chairs in the center and a little one for kids in the corner. All the furniture legs are painted a different bright color. Plastic containers full of knickknacks crowd the shelves. He spots colorful beads in every size and shape, dried beans, clothing pins, coins, rice, pompoms, macaroni, paperclips, crayons, playdough and coloring books. Everything is friendly, warm, and looks like it might be sticky from jam coated fingers. It’s the kind of room that would’ve tricked him into tolerating a long wait at the dentist’s office as a kid. It’s also the kind of room he can imagine Billy tearing apart in a fit of rage. There are way too many things begging to be thrown within easy reach.

The primary activity for day seems to involve moving coins from a plate and dropping them in a bucket then putting them back. It’s mind numbingly boring to watch. He checks the clock on the wall again. It has to be slow. There is no way only ten minutes have passed. Billy curses under his breath every time a coin slips out of his grasp. Which is a lot.

Steve gets up and walks around to look into all of the jars. A kindergarten teacher would kill to have a closet stocked with all of these supplies. He grabs a bunch of paperclips and makes a necklace out of them. He did that to entertain himself when he was stuck in his dad’s office waiting for him to come back from a meeting and got in trouble for being immature. Sometimes being an adult is stupid. Billy is glaring at the knocked over coins he'd started stacking as if they’ve personally betrayed him. So, he does the only logical thing and puts it on him.

“I’m impressed.” Billy lifts it up as if to admire the craftsmanship. “Wanna stack some coins for me next?”

“Nah.” Steve flops back into his chair. “How else are you going to practice for your future job at the bank?”

“Don’t be a square, Harrington.”

The sad thing is that Tommy talked him into doing so much shit with the same exact words. The coins are all over the place. “Whoever builds the highest coin tower gets to pick what we do next Wednesday. I’ll use my left hand to even out the odds.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Chicken.”

“Fine.”

Steve starts scooping quarters into the palm of his hand without warning. Billy slaps both hands over a handful of coins and slides them out of his reach. Their hands collide and brush against each other in a crazed rush to gather up the most coins. A couple of them go flying off the table. It’s dimes and pennies, he can always go after those later if he needs them. He slides his coins to the side of the table and starts stacking. Billy steals a quarter from him.

“Hey!” Steve wraps a protective arm around the rest of his stash.

“Gotta learn to play a little defense.”

“Coin hog.”

“It’s not hogging if you know what to do with it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he almost finishes the sentence with ‘you still don’t know how to shut up and play’ but then he remembers the thing Billy said when they drove out to the quarry. _The real bitch of it is, my dad was right all along. Turns out, my presence is halfway tolerable as long as I keep my mouth shut._ So instead he finishes with, “Keep talking.”

Steve uses his right arm as a barrier between them and stacks with his left hand. He doesn’t know what he wants to do next Wednesday, but he’s going to win the opportunity to find out. Also, there’s no knowing what Billy might come up with. If he comes into his next Family Video shift with his head shaved Robin will never let him live it down.

“Done!” He shields the base of his tower, just in case Billy gets any ideas.

“Fuck.” Billy throws his hands up in defeat. “This is stupid.”

“Careful, Hargrove.” He does his best imitation of their high school basketball coach. “Don’t want to get suspended from future games for unsportsmanlike conduct, do you?

“Tried that one already.” Billy nods his head at the shelves. “They used glass jars when I first showed up.”  
  


***

It’s dark out by the time they get back to the car. Billy has his check in hand and looks more exhausted than Steve has ever seen him. And he used to see him in the locker-room after grueling weekday basketball games where he carried them to victory almost singlehandedly. Steve lowers the volume on the radio until Elvis is a low croon in the background. He kind of hopes that the music and the rumble of the car on the road will lull Billy to sleep. He looks like he needs it.

“Thank you for staying. You didn’t have to do that.”

“What else was I going to do? Not like I know anyone in Cincinnati.”

“You could’ve gone home.”

“And you’d get home, how?”

“Hitchhiking. There’s a lot of truckers heading towards Indianapolis.”

Steve doesn’t point out that this doesn’t sound like a safe or reliable method of transportation back to Hawkins. He doubts it would do any good to lecture Billy about unexpected dangers. Besides, the point is that’s not the point. “Is that really the only reason you asked me to come? Because your car broke down?”

Which is when Billy decides he doesn’t want to talk anymore. He turns his head towards the window and stares into the bright glare of passing streetlamps. Annoyance tugs at the edges of his mind, but he lets it go. It’s been a long day. He’s hungry. There is no reason to force this conversation when they’re both cranky and stuck in a car with each other. He could stop at a diner, but it’s going to be dark as hell on the highway and a full stomach makes him sleepy.

The silence gives him time to think about all the things they could do next Wednesday. It has to be something cool. He strains to remember what he used to do before he battled monsters with a bunch of kids. The quarry is too obvious a choice. They’ve both been there hundreds of times. Pumpkin and apple picking don’t sound like activities Billy would be into. They could see a movies or go to the same diner they always go to. None of it sounds significant enough to celebrate being alive. The miles stretch out in front of him in an endless hypnotic line that offers up no answers.

“I’m not good at… friends.”

Steve startles a little. They’re about to drive into Hawkins. He doesn’t respond right away so that he can pick the right words and figure out the right order to put them in. “Everyone thinks the stuff with Nancy is the reason Tommy and I stopped being friends. And it was that. But I think it was the Upside Down too. It was just… too hard to be close and keep a secret like that.”

“They’re scared of me,” Billy says fidgeting with the paperclip necklace that for some inexplicable reason he’s still wearing. “They try to hide it, but I can tell. Most of the nurses won’t take my blood samples. That’s why they’re so happy you came, so they don’t have to be alone with me.”

He hums in response to keep himself from saying something stupid. His gut insists that Billy is being paranoid, the same way it insisted Nancy was making way too big a deal about Barb cutting school. Because he doesn’t want it to be true. It’s uncomfortable to consider that Billy might be right, that the doctors and nurses treating him are regular people who probably have less experience with the Upside Down than the two of them. He thinks back to the guy in a lab coat that listed out the exercises for Billy then left the room without making eye contact.

He turns off earlier than if he was going directly home. It’s the fastest way to get to Billy’s house. The lights are on when they pull into the driveway. From the outside the house looks warm and inviting. They sit for a while and Steve almost finds the courage to ask.

“Thanks again for the ride.” Billy pulls the folded envelope with his check out of his pocket and waves it. “I’ll pay you back for the gas when I cash it.”

He nods because he knows it’s useless to argue with Billy over money. If he insists on paying for pizza then he ends up finding money somewhere in his car or in the pocket of his coat. The wind whistles when Billy opens the door to get out.

“Wait.” Steve catches him right under the elbow. He can feel the clump of cotton trapped under a band aid through the sleeve of his shirt. Billy turns around, eyes darting towards the house for a moment. He loosens his grip a little to give him the chance to pull away if he wants. “How long can you be out of town before someone complains?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading commenting! <3


	9. Chapter 9

“Okay.”

“And I can- Okay?” Steve raises his eyebrows in suspicion. There is no way Robin is going to agree to participate in a complex chain of shift swaps at Family Video without demanding something in return. He was ready to let her pick all the movies they watch together for the rest of the year.

“Don’t act so surprised.” She swirls around on the bar stool by the kitchen island. “I’m an amazing friend.”

“You are.”

She raises a finger into the air. “I have one request.”

“I knew it!”

“When you come back make sure he doesn’t look like he escaped a Russian torture bunker where he was imprisoned for over a year. It’s freaking me out.”

“He doesn’t look _that_ bad.” He isn’t sure if his objection is made in defense of Billy’s appearance or his own taste. Because the way he sees it, Billy looks pretty good. His hair is starting to grow out and sometimes it sticks out in adorable little swoops that remind him of an owl growing in its feathers. And recently he noticed for the first time that one of his eyebrows does a little dip when he smiles. And he has these absurdly long eyelashes. It has to be a side effect of the Upside Down stuff. There is no way he had those eyelashes before and Steve just hadn’t noticed them.

Robin spins herself back around to face him and takes an apple out of the fruit bowl. “Can you please pull your head out of your ass or wherever you’re storing it these days and listen to me?”

“You’re making me dizzy.”

“He looks like shit.” She bites into the apple hard enough that juice sprays out of it and hits him in the face. “You need to talk to him.”

“Wait.” Steve takes the apple from her and bites it from the other end. He never wants a whole apple and Robin can never finish the whole thing. It’s the perfect arrangement. “How do you know what he looks like?”

“First of all.” She spins around in her seat again. “The fact that you’re surprised I’ve seen him recently in a town this small should be enough evidence that you need to talk to him. Secondly, I see him at the library with Max all the time. He hangs around drawing and helps her with her homework.”

“Billy _draws_?”

“I think shop was full by the time he moved to Hawkins so they stuck him in art class with the weirdos and social rejects.” She steals the apple back from him. “He’s pretty good. I let him do a marker tattoo on my arm once. Mr. Mundy disagreed, but I still think the proportions of that mermaid’s anatomy were truly inspired.”

Steve can’t let that go unexplained.

***

They’re halfway up to his parents' Lake Michigan house by the time Steve remembers that he forgot to ask Robin to explain to him the right way to ask a friend why they look like shit. He’s between ninety and ninety five percent sure that the word ‘shit’ shouldn’t be used at any point in the conversation.

And that’s how he ends up singing _Sunglasses at Night_ into a Slim Jim. And yeah, maybe it’s not the first time he’s used his best ridiculous voice to yowl ‘don’t switch the blade on the guy in shades oh no’, but it is the first time he manages to bop his head hard enough to the beat to knock an actual pair of sunglasses down from his hair and onto his nose. They’re at an empty rest stop and the music is blasting out of the car. Billy doesn’t join in when he shoves the ‘microphone’ into his face, but coke does spurt out of his nose when Steve gets his voice high enough. All in all, it’s a successful performance.

“Want me to drive for a while?” Billy shoves a wad of wet napkins into his half-eaten bag of potato chips. It’s a waste of perfectly good chips.

“Sure.” Technically, when he got the car for his birthday his dad made him promise that he would never let anyone else drive it, but he figures that rule no longer applies. “We can switch back after we eat lunch.”

“This is our second snack stop and you were eating a bagel when you picked me up.” Billy gets into the car and starts adjusting the seat and mirrors. “How much are you planning on eating this weekend?”

Steve gets the polaroid camera he bought a few days ago out of the back seat. “A road trip isn’t complete without snacks.”

“I thought you said that a road trip isn’t complete without a custom mixtape.”

“Those are not mutually exclusive.” He learned that comeback from Robin.

So maybe he got a little _too_ excited about planning their long weekend away. When he was a kid, his parents used to drive up to the lake house all the time. He loved it right up until it started to interfere with making out with girls and sneaking cigarettes and beers with Tommy. After that his dad went up by himself to go fishing. Then his mom started questioning him about his new secretary. After that his mom used it for an occasional weekend away with her sisters. These days, his parents paid someone to check in on the place. The point is that he has a lot of downtime at Family Video. The point is that he hasn’t been out of Hawkins in ages. The point is that anywhere actually cool is too far away so he intends to use every resource at his disposal to make this trip great.

It takes him forever to get the film into the camera. He called Nancy to get Jonathan’s new number so that he could ask him how to use one. _I don’t shoot polaroid._ That left him with no choice but to point out that he let Will sneak into a ton of movies before the mall ‘burned down in a fire’. Jonathan had sighed dramatically and given him a couple tips.

Steve turns the camera and snaps a photo of Billy. Which is breaking all of the rules Jonathan told him to follow. _Keep your hands steady._ _Don’t take the photos too close. They’ll come out better if it’s bright._ He might be able to improve on the first two, but he’s not holding his breath on the bright part. He planned a weekend away so of course it’s cloudy. With his luck it’s going to rain all weekend and they’ll be stuck inside with nothing to do.

“What the hell?” Billy raises his hand too late to block the photo.

“I promised Robin that I would document.”

Which is only stretching the truth a little bit. How else is he supposed to figure out if he’s making progress against her request that Billy return not looking like shit? Maybe if he compares a couple photos of him side by side, he’ll be able to figure it out.

“She doesn’t mind?”

“What?” Steve flips up the photo where he slapped it face down on his jeans because he forgot to bring the little sleeve that came with the camera. “That all the photos are going to be blurry?”

“That her boyfriend didn’t bring her to see his parents’ fancy lake house.”

He almost doesn’t correct him. People keep assuming that him and Robin are a thing no matter how many times they both deny it. At some point, they stopped correcting the people who don’t matter. It’s easier than having to explain for the hundredth time that no they aren’t dating, but yes, they are sharing a milkshake. “I’m not her boyfriend.”

“Because you don’t want to be or because she doesn’t want you to be?”

“Because neither one of us want to. We’re just friends.”

He prepares himself for the inevitable disbelief and questions. _She gets you, Steve. You’re so great together. What do you mean she’s not your type? Is it because you don’t think she’s cool enough? Is it because you’re still hung up on Nancy? Is it because she doesn’t think you’re dating material? I had a friend like that once, now we’re married with two kids. What do you mean you’re not her type?_

Billy bobs his head. “Cool.”

He pulls a pen out of the glovebox and flips the photo over. His handwriting is atrocious and he doesn’t want to ruin the front of it. _Billy driving._ He’s going to want that for reference because it’s not quite clear what the hell is happening from the smudge of colors on the other side. “Yeah. It is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos and comments! <3 Always love hearing from you.


	10. Chapter 10

The house looks the same as it always did. It’s a faded blue that gives it a cheerful sun-bleached look in the sunlight and a dreary look of abandonment when it’s cloudy. He parks in the driveway because the garage is still full of furniture and boxed up knickknacks from the time his mom got into the whole minimalism thing and redecorated the house in Hawkins. The steps creak as much as they did the last time he came up here. He puts his shoulder into it when he opens the front door, the way his dad always does. It sticks a little. Something about the wood expanding from the humidity.

It’s dark as hell inside so he makes his way over to the curtains. He knows the way through the maze of furniture even without the dim light filtering inside from where Billy is holding the door open. There is the giant chest that serves as a coffee table to maneuver around. He tripped and hit his head on it as a kid. There is a bookcase in the corner crammed with a weird assortment of children’s books, trashy romance novels, cookbooks, and outdated technical manuals. One of the cushions on the dark green couch has a beige corduroy patch from when his mom sewed it on to keep the stuffing from making a mess. She hadn’t bothered with matching fabric colors because she planned on replacing it. A few years ago, his mom mentioned that she wanted to redecorate this house too and he’d begged her to leave it alone. _What does it matter to you? You never want to come up with us anymore anyway._

He pulls the curtains open and light floods into the room.

“Wow.”

He remembers every nook and cranny of this house, but he kind of forgot how great it is to see the lake stretching all the way out into the horizon through the windows. “Yeah.”

Billy closes the door and comes in to stand next to him, his duffel bag in hand. “Shit, I knew it’s big, but I guess I didn’t think it would really be _this_ big, you know?”

“Is it anything like the ocean?”

“You’ve never seen the ocean?”

Steve shakes his head. People assume he’s been to a lot of places because his parents have money and his dad travels. But his dad travels for work and he’s never been further out of Hawkins than Chicago.

“The waves look wrong, but it almost feels the same.”

Staring out into the water always makes him feel small. Like the tide is going to come in and tear him away from everything he knows and out into the unknown. It’s unnerving, but Billy sounds happy about whatever it is he feels staring out into the distance. “I’ll check the other rooms.”

“Can I use the phone?” Billy rubs the back of his neck. “I promised Max I’d call to let her know we got here okay.”

“It’s in the kitchen.”

He flicks the lights on as he goes down the hallway to the bedrooms and inspects the ceilings for water damage. His mom drilled that into his head when he asked about coming up here. He passes the master bedroom with its tiny adjoined bathroom and goes straight to his room. Its been ages since he slept on a twin mattress although the plaid sheets feel familiar. Steve picks up the model airplane on the bedside table. It’s weird to think that one night his dad let him stay up late so they could finish building it not knowing it would be the last time they did something like that together. He runs his finger over the place where his hand slipped and messed up the paint job. They hadn’t known then about all the other disappointments they’d inflict on each other. 

Steve sets it down and turns around to find Billy in the doorframe wearing his sunglasses, a wide grin on his face. “Time to hit the beach, pretty boy.”

***

Hitting the beach involves bundling themselves up against the cutting wind. It whips into them the moment they step out onto the deck that leads down to a difficult to define stretch of sand owned by his parents. It doesn’t matter anyway. They are alone except for a few gulls. They could be the only people on the planet. Steve closes his eyes for a moment to breathe in the crisp air. He forgot how much he loves being here. He opens his eyes to find Billy watching him, looking uncertain.

Steve elbows him. “Last one to the water is a rotten egg.”

He takes off without waiting to see if Billy’s following. His arms are constrained by his jacket and the sand feels weird shifting under his shoes. It’s strange to run without a monster chasing him. Before that running was about training for basketball. And before that, it wasn’t about anything except moving his legs as fast as he could. When he was a kid, he used to think that he could keep running faster and faster until he took off into the air like a tiny plane. He skids to a halt right at the shoreline and spreads his arms out into the wind.

Billy crashes into him a few moments later, gasping for air. He staggers away from him to rest his hands on his knees. His pants for air are followed by a wheezing sound. Steve remembers what the doctor said about his heart and lungs. Maybe a sprint isn’t what the doctor ordered.

“You okay?”

Billy grins up at him. His cheeks are flushed. “Yeah.”

A giddiness fills him, like when he was younger and couldn’t wait until his mom finished gathering up her things at the beach so they could go into town and get ice cream. It’s been a long time since he felt this good. Maybe they both need this trip.

“Come on, loser.” He nudges into Billy. “It’s too cold to stand around.”

“Ugh. Don’t-” Billy straightens up and takes a deep breath. “Let it go to your head.”

“It doesn’t go to my head.” Steve starts walking backwards away from him. “It goes to my hair. You think I keep it looking this good with product alone?”

Billy groans and stumbles after him. “Shut up or I will throw up.”

“Gross.”

“Good thing you weren’t there when I first woke up in the hospital.” Billy straightens out. “I puked up buckets of black goo.”

Steve tries to think of something profound to say about that. “Super gross.”

“It was.”

They walk the shoreline for a while, their arms bumping every once in a while. It’s because of the shifting sand and because he doesn’t want his shoes to get soaked by the tide. He wants to keep walking until his hands and toes go numb, but he remembers what Max told him about Billy hating the cold even more now.

He stops to stare out into the water and pretends it’s the water and shoreline that has him fascinated, but really, he’s watching Billy. There is a strange expression on his face that Steve can’t identify. Maybe if he’d read some of the books his English teachers assigned to him in high school, he would know how to describe it. Those books always had stuff like silent men staring out into the sea or over a battlefield thinking deep thoughts.

“Take a picture. It’ll last longer.”

“Sorry.” Steve looks away. “I was trying to figure out what you’re thinking about.”

“California.”

“You ever think about going back?”

“Why would I go back?”

He doesn’t know anything about Billy’s life before Hawkins. Only that there was a boy there. Still, everyone in town knows Billy thinks the place is a shithole. Which is probably the greatest understatement ever. Anywhere has to be better than next door to the Upside Down. “To get away from all of this?”

“You can’t run from your problems.” He says it as if he's just discovered the truth of the sentiment and finds it a bit funny.

“No, but you can run from a gateway to another dimension filled with monsters,” Steve points out. Ms. Byers had the right idea getting the hell out of town. Sometimes he questions why he hasn’t followed her example. All he has to do is pretend that he wants to make a real go of it at his dad’s company or at some college. His parents might have gotten stingy with displays of affection over the years, but they were never all that stingy when it came to money. The job at Scoops Ahoy was a rare attempt at a punishment that lasted more than a week.

“I can’t leave.”

“Because of the government?”

“No.” Billy looks tired. “They offered me a lot of money to move somewhere else. A lot more convenient than having to worry about me keeping my story straight at home and with the locals.”

“Why didn’t you take it?”

“Max can’t leave.” He turns away from the water and starts trudging back towards the house. Steve almost doesn’t catch the rest over the wind. “You don’t leave family behind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while! Thanks for the patience, kudos, and comments everyone. :)


	11. Chapter 11

Steve wakes up with sweat cooling on the neckline of his shirt. He doesn’t remember the dream, but the fear clings to him, stubborn against his insistence that everything is fine. After a few minutes of tossing and turning, he gets out of bed and makes his way to the kitchen, careful to avoid the creaking floorboards so that he doesn’t wake Billy up. He pours himself a glass of water from the sink. A familiar draft of cold air sweeps over his bare feet. It means the sliding patio door isn’t firmly shut. He goes into the living room and is glad he left the glass behind because something is outside. It takes him too long to realize that it’s not a _something_ crouching up the stairs to the patio but a someone. It’s Billy.

He jams his bare feet into his sneakers and puts his coat on over his pajamas to join him. The steps are awkward. He hadn’t noticed that earlier. They’re too narrow for his feet now. The front half of his foot hangs off precariously. He jams himself in next to Billy. He may have lost weight, but his shoulders are still broad. It’s more uncomfortable than cozy so he shifts back to rest on his elbows, a step digging into his back. He stares up at the endless pinpricks of light in the sky. He doesn’t ask what Billy is doing outside at this hour. He doesn’t ask why Billy nudged the food on his plate around and didn’t eat more than a few bites of meatloaf at dinner. He doesn’t ask if he’s okay, because he knows the answer.

“What happened to your arm?”

He can hear the scrape of sand trapped between the wooden step and Billy’s shoe when he shifts his foot. “My dad was helping me get out of bed.”

“Helping you how?”

“He didn’t mean to do it.” He sounds calm, certain. “I dislocated my shoulder when I shoved half my arm into that thing’s mouth. The joint is fragile. He didn’t know.”

It takes some restraint not to point out that helping someone who almost died out of bed with enough force to wrench their arm out of its socket doesn’t sound like the right way to go about it. He might not be smart enough to get into medical school, but he knows that much. “Is that what happened the day Max called me? Your dad was helping you?”

“He doesn’t believe the whole hero teen pulls some kids out of a fire story. Doesn’t think it’s right I get a check from the government when I was there up to no good.”

“Up to no good?”

“He thinks I broke into the mall at night to steal shit.” Billy snorts. “Which is a lot better than what I was actually doing.”

“Except it wasn’t you doing it.”

“I’m not a hero.” Billy spits the last word out as if it’s burning him. “My entire life I never got a say over shit. Not over my mom leaving. Not over my dad building his whole new perfect family. Not over moving to Hawkins. That was my last chance to have a say. I stopped it, because _fuck_ that thing. I never stood up to anyone when it mattered in my entire life and I didn’t want to go out that way. I did it for _myself_. Not for some kid I never met.”

“But you did save her.”

Billy snorts and pulls something that crinkles out of his pocket. “You think it doesn’t matter, why people do things?”

The Russians reopened the gate. Billy got possessed. A lot of people died. Ms. Byers closed the gate. Billy didn’t die. Hopper did. When it comes to the Upside Down it’s hard to figure out much of anything except the facts. It’s ironic. Or so Robin tells him. “Maybe you get to decide if it matters.”

The familiar, pleasantly stale scent of cigarettes reaches him when Billy dips his head towards the flickering flame of his lighter. “This is the part where you give me the rest of the speech.”

“What speech?”

The end of the cigarette reminds him of a firefly left behind by the summer when Billy waves his hand around. “This is your second chance. Stop smoking. Life is short. Do something worthwhile with it.”

Steve leans forward so that they’re shoulder to shoulder again. He reaches out for the cigarette, unsure if it’s a craving for a soothing hit of nicotine or a selfless attempt to preserve lung tissue that drives him. Their fingers brush when Billy passes it off to him, reluctant. “I work at Family Video and my boss is a high school senior. Not sure that I’m the guy to give you the seize the day speech.”

“There’s worse ways to make a living.”

“Guess so.” Steve takes another drag from the cigarette and tells himself that it’s for a good cause. He must hold the record for the most attempts in Hawkins at quitting a casual smoking habit. So at least that’s an achievement.

“You remember what I told you about why we came to Hawkins?”

The wind sweeps through the staircase gaps and cuts through his pajama pants and coat. It’s cold as hell out. They should be inside sitting in front of the fireplace. He suppresses a shiver. “Sure.” 

“You’ve never asked me about it.”

There are a lot of things he never asks about. When it comes to this, most of the time he forgets. It's easy to forget when he has so many memories of girls fawning over Billy at every opportunity. Women even. Of Billy enjoying the attention. Or at least of pretending to enjoy it. When he remembers he's never sure what he should say. “Do you want me to?”

“I want to go to Chicago.”

“Yeah?”

“There’s this bar. It’s supposed to be- It’s for- You can drop me off.”

He’s heard rumors and occasional crude jokes about places like that. Sometimes he sees stuff about it on the news or in the papers. No one talks about it. It’s not a ‘proper’ subject for conversation. Sometimes though he senses an undercurrent of tension when it comes up, like maybe he’s not the only one who’s a little bit curious. “We can go together.”


	12. Chapter 12

“You can’t wear that.”

Steve scowls. He’d packed for a few days of rest and relaxation, not for a night of partying in Chicago. He isn’t sure he even owns anything that’s appropriate for the occasion. He’s never been to a bar. A fake ID is useless in a town the size of Hawkins. Besides, someone always has an older brother willing to buy booze for a party. The only bars he’s seen are the ones in the movies. There are the fancy ones where rich people drink martinis and the dingy saloons in the westerns. They don’t make movies about the kind of bar they’re going to. Or maybe they do, but they don’t have them at Family Video.

“This is the nicest thing I brought with me.”

Billy snorts. “You look like a dad who works a steady nine to five at Radio Shack. It’s a bar, not a country club. You can’t wear a polo and _khakis_.”

“Says the guy in a flannel bathrobe.” It’s not much of a defense, because technically the robe also belongs to him. His mom got it for him a few year ago, but he never comes up here anymore so it’s practically unworn.

“I’ll lend you a shirt.” 

Steve moves a decorative bowl of pebbles to the floor so he can scoot up and sit on the bathroom counter. There is enough room that he could bring in a chair from the kitchen, but he doesn’t want to step outside the comfortable bubble of warm humidity. “I should’ve brought cologne or something.”

“You can use mine.” Billy grins and cranks the radio up another notch. Any louder and the Millers next door are going to call or come over to complain. He picks up a bottle of mousse, shakes it before squeezing a dollop of it out onto his palm, then starts working it into his still damp hair. His movements are a bit too big, as if he’s used to having more to work with.

He’s never watched anyone except his mom get ready for a night out. That’s how he learned the hairspray trick. As long as he focuses on that, he can ignore the pit of anxiety in his gut. Billy leans towards the mirror to focus on a curl by his forehead. The top of the bathrobe gapes a little, revealing the edges of the scarring on his chest. The first time Steve saw him in the locker room, he’d forced himself to look away. Billy wasn’t the first guy with muscles to roll through Hawkins High, but he was the first one with a tan like that. The scars fascinate him more than the tan did. They’re complex. Layers of healed over melted flesh with the occasional slash left behind by a steady claw. He wonders how they’d feel under his fingertips.

Billy reaches for his bottle of cologne and pauses, must notice him starting. The music blares and mingles with the damp air clinging around them. Steve opens his mouth to say something. But there is no way to explain that he wasn’t _bad_ staring without acknowledging there is a reason someone else might stare in a bad way. So, he closes it again. The cold is starting to creep in through the crack under the bathroom door. A mischievous smirk spreads over Billy’s face. He runs his tongue over his teeth and winks at him. The thick air weighs down his lungs. 

And then Billy cackles, loud enough that he rumbles over the radio. He takes his damp towel and whips it against Steve’s legs like they’re back in the locker room after a brutal basketball practice. He leans in as if he intends to talk trash about his footing. “Get your ass into a pair of jeans, Harrington.”

***

Steve drives the whole way to Chicago. Billy offers to drive part of the way, but he needs something to do other than worry. Next to him, Billy demolishes a bag of potato chips followed by a packet of jerky and bops his head along to the radio. When they pull over at a rest stop, he wipes crumbs off of what has to be a brand-new maroon shirt. Most of his shirts are a little loose around the frame. This one clings to him in a way that borders on indecent. Steve takes a photo. It comes out crisp and bright.

They’re only a block away from the bar, if the scrap of paper with a sloppy scrawl of a map and address can be trusted, when Billy comes to a dead stop.

“This is wrong.”

“You think we should’ve taken a left back there instead of a right?” He squints between the scribbles and the street sign. Maps have never been his strong suit. Which is something he probably should’ve admitted before he started leading the way.

“No.” Billy looks pale. “I mean this is a bad idea. We shouldn’t have come here.”

“You’re kidding, right? I drove for _two_ hours.”

“I know. Shit.” Billy runs a hand through his hair and takes a step back. “I’ll drive the whole way back. I can drive back to Hawkins too.”

Steve takes a deep breath. He knows what happens when you force people to have fun when all they want to do is take a moment to be miserable. That never goes well. But he is also the master of talking people into doing things they already know they want to do. And he knows that no one buys a new shirt and folds and unfolds a map so many times it’s at risk of tearing along the creases when they don’t want to go somewhere. 

“We made it.” He gestures wildly, like a mayor kicking off a Fourth of July extravaganza. It used to work on all the guys on the basketball team. “It’s literally right around the corner and it’s going to be amazing. If you hate it then I promise we can leave after fifteen minutes, okay?”

Billy hesitates. “If we leave after fifteen minutes will you let me drive?”

“Come on.” Steve rolls his eyes and shoves the map into his chest. “You have to figure out where we are, because I can’t read your handwriting.”

“My handwriting is fine. It’s not my fault you don’t know how a map works. Didn’t the nerds teach you anything?”

“Yeah, they taught me I should never be the brains of an operation.”

It’s Billy’s turn to roll his eyes, but he takes the map and glances at it for less than a second before leading the way.

***

He plays it cool. As if there is nothing earth shattering going on around them. But it’s hard not to stare when they are surrounded by men dancing. No, men grinding on each other. The floor is slick with sweat and splashed drinks. There are two men making out in a dark corner. He’s never seen men kissing before. Their bodies are crushed together and their movements are frantic. Steve is pretty sure he would be able to get off on doing that with a chick even wearing his jeans. Then realizes with a flush of heat that that’s probably exactly what he’s watching. He looks away.

Billy somehow managed to get them beers so they’re both pressed up against the wall, watching it all unfold in front of them. Steve takes a sip from his bottle. It’s empty. He doesn’t remember drinking from it at all. He shoves his hand between a mass of bodies and abandons it on the edge of the bar. When he turns around Billy is right behind him like he’s worried they might lose each other in the crowd.

“You should go dance.” Steve has to lean in and shout it into his ear.

Billy shakes his head no.

“Come on.” Steve pries the beer out of his hand and shoves it next to his own bottle at the bar, then tugs on Billy’s shirt to pull him towards the dance floor. He thinks that’s not going to be as weird as taking his hand. The shirt is tight, so unless Billy wants it torn off, he has no choice but to follow.

It’s not easy to press his way into the crowd. It doesn’t part for him the way it used to at a high school party. He stops trying to make himself small so that he can squeeze into the open gaps. Instead, he surrenders to the press of bodies and lets himself be swallowed. Melts into it, because it’s one night. No one here knows them. No one except the two of them has to know that they were here. For a night, he can forget what people think of places like this and of the people who go to them. For a couple hours, he can pretend he belongs.

Feet and elbows graze against him. There are hands wandering over him, searching for someone else, trying to push him aside and make room. He can taste the sweat and cologne wafting through the air around them. Some guy behind him is so close that he intimately understands the shape of his ass without turning around to get a look at it. Steve has always been a confident dancer. That’s the thing about being cool in a town like Hawkins, it doesn’t matter if you’re making a fool of yourself. As long as long as you don’t doubt yourself, everyone trusts that whatever you’re doing is cool.

The crowd brings them closer and closer together. Steve lets his hand glide to Billy’s hip and closes his eyes so that he doesn’t have to answer the questioning look his touch prompts. Lets his other hand rest on Billy’s lower back, because there is nowhere else to put it. Friends can dance together. Girls do it all the time. It doesn’t have to be weird. Carol used to slow dance with Lori sometimes at the end of a party. Hands flung over her shoulders and locked behind her neck. When he circles his hips forward, he can feel Billy’s thigh between his legs, moving in rhythm with him. And yeah, okay, it may be true that Carol and Lori never danced like that. And if they did, neither one of them ground their hips lower to chase blazing hot friction. To hell with the both of them. This feels good. Better than the first mouthful of popcorn after escaping the Russian bunker pumped full of drugs. There is an enticing warmth spreading from his gut that indicates his body is thoroughly in agreement. Billy isn’t touching him, but Steve can feel the bounce and brush of his arm on the outside of his thigh. The occasional brush of his chest against his. The huff of his breath on his neck when Billy brings his hips towards the ground, escaping contact, only to surge back up against him. His body is right on the edge of sliding over into a level of enjoyment that he won’t be able to hide. He slips his own thigh forward unable to resist his curiosity.

The rush of air he finds feels cold after the heat of their bodies pressed together. Steve opens his eyes.

“I gotta piss.” Billy shouts pointing over the crowd towards the bathroom. He’s pulled away already, backing up at an impressive speed.

Steve nods and motions back towards the wall where they started the evening to indicate where he plans to wait. He gets himself a glass of water from the bar, if Billy wants to keep drinking, he should be able to, and then retreats against the clammy wall. He gulps down the lukewarm water. He wants Billy to come back so they can keep dancing. The sickly heat of embarrassment crawls up his neck and towards his face. Away from the hypnotizing motions of the dance floor he has the space to ask himself exactly what the hell he’s doing. When he told Billy they could go together, he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t let it get weird. 

_Pull it together, Harrington._

This is a clear sign that Dustin is right. It’s about time that he went on a date and, Dustin didn’t suggest this part, got laid. If there was a chick anywhere in sight, he might try to convince her to sneak off into a bathroom with him. He’s done it in a closet at a party before, a bathroom can’t be that different.

By the time he finishes the water he feels better. Clearheaded. Dehydration is a real bitch.

Which is also when he realizes that there is no way it should be taking Billy this long to take a piss. What if it’s serious and he has to take Billy to a hospital or call an ambulance? How is he going to explain the scars and injuries? Can they help him at a normal hospital? Before he can gather up the courage to go look for him, Billy stumbles out through the crowd. He doesn’t say a word just shoves his way towards the door and disappears out into the night. Steve abandons his empty glass and follows him.

Billy is hunched over by the side of the building, forehead and one hand braced against the brick wall.

“Hey,” Steve comes up behind him. “Everything okay?”

In response, Billy produces a heaving cough that’s followed by the splatter of what has to be breakfast and chunks of undigested beef jerky. Every time he thinks it’s over, a fresh bout of choking starts. Steve glances towards the bar entrance, unsure if he’s worried someone will find them or hoping someone does and offers to help.

“Fucking hell.” Billy spits into the puddle by his feet then straightens up and stumbles away from it. A sheen of sweat that glistens in the dim light of the streetlamp coats his entire face.

Steve wonders if he took something in the bathroom. Sometimes people take stuff in bathrooms, even at high school parties. “What happened?”

“When that thing-” Billy wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and shakes his head. “I don’t like shit thrusting into my mouth.”

It takes Steve a little too long to interpret that. Something sour creeps up from the back of his throat, probably a normal response to the stench of vomit. Billy was right. This trip was a bad idea. They should’ve turned back when they had the chance. “I want to go home.”

“Want me to drive?” Billy asks halfheartedly. 

“No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading folks. Always love hearing from you. Hopefully, a somewhat longer chapter makes up for a long wait.


End file.
